Stolen Food Moments
On bonus chips, Russian Roulette oysters, and found chocolate.
I love food like I love oxygen, or the feeling of blood moving through your veins. It’s a love that feels deeper, more complete, more resolved than any sort of hobby or fixation. It’s a love that came fully formed, ingrained, inescapable. There is never a time where food is not part of the equation.
I love the glorious, triumphant moments that food can bring. I remember a meal I shared in Edinburgh with my partner, at Martin Wishart’s sadly departed The Honours. We ordered a beautifully aged piece of Scottish highland beef, adorned with all the sides. Perfectly crispy and fluffy fat chips, every possible condiment, a frankly perverse garlic escargot sauce. As the waiter lowered the meal onto the table, as if by some miraculous happenstance, the opening strains of Neil Young’s “Helpless” started playing in the restaurant. It was always one of my favourite Neil Young songs, but at that moment I realised that it was actually just my favourite song. The meal was so unfathomably perfect that it brings a tear to my eye to this day, and is a perfect memory of the ceremonial, theatrical power of food.
But there are quieter memories that are just as visceral and memorable. I call them stolen food moments; the ones we don’t talk about, post on our Instagrams, or perhaps put into the public domain. I’ll put it this way; when playing the Off Menu Podcast game of choosing my dream final restaurant meal, my choice for starter usually fluctuates between a dozen perfectly pristine oysters, or an elaborate Lyonnaise style charcuterie board. But if I’m actually, truly honest with you, my real favourite food is Vegemite toast, and not using particularly amazing bread either. And it’s that third, overly buttered, deeply unnecessary piece, eaten on the back porch as I take a stolen moment of pure private gluttony, that is the best of all. These are the moments I’m talking about today.
A great, affordable way to make your steak go further is to buy better, buy less, and serve communally. No one really needs a whole 250g + steak per person of a weeknight, save for the sacred Australian ritual of a pub steak night. Buying a beautifully butchered piece of beef, seasoning and cooking it correctly, and serving it nicely sliced and fanned over salad, grilled veg or steamed rice is a more than adequate dinner solution for two people. This method also presents one of life’s great treats; the end piece of your steak, sliced away with excited showmanship like a sushi master, and dragged through resting juices before being plopped into your mouth. A private, indulgent moment that is as fine a reward as any.
The other great chef’s treat is also the reason why you should never abdicate carving responsibilities when a roast chook demands portioning. Firstly, I should state my view that the only acceptable way to slice and present a roasted or butterflied barbecued chicken is the Chinese method, where the bones are left attached to the flesh. If you haven’t, and you are intent on faffing about and stripping the carcass like some sort of fussy hyena, I urge you all to try it just once.
Secondly, as carver, you have primary access to a number of stolen food moments here, whether it be a wayward ribbon of salty chicken skin, or the fatty, collagen rich chew of the chicken butt. But the true jewel is the chicken oyster. Two small, concealed, thumb sized pieces of flesh that sit in little ridges along the bird’s spine. Insulated by the bones and almost never exposed to direct heat, the oyster is an incredibly rich and flavoursome morsel, like thigh meat amplified by an offal-y depth, the hanger steak of the poultry world. It is, as far as I’m concerned, the law of the kitchen that those who carve the bird are treated to this heavenly stolen food moment.
A baguette is a wonderful thing, and the best part of a baguette is the tip, torn directly from the paper bag, and eaten whilst perambulating around the shops. Suddenly, your perambulating has graduated to flaneuring! Something I know enough about myself is to warn others that if they ask me to pick them up a baguette, know that they shall not receive the full baguette.
Leftover chips in the fast food bag are legendary stolen food moments; a sort of bonus round of chippery, somehow infinitely more alluring than the chips in the chip vessel. The only thing more desirable is the legendary Bonus Nugget or, heaven forbid, the Bonus Onion Ring. One brand that has made the bonus chip round part of its service is the excellent American burger chain Five Guys, which has three Australian sites. Aside from fantastic burgers, their chips are hand cut, made from actual local potatoes, and despite appearing to be comparatively expensive, come absolutely overflowing from your takeaway bag. I love Five Guys, and I love bonus chips.
While most of these stolen food moments are private and best consumed away from judgemental eyes, there is the occasional public one. A personal favourite is when eating pizza with friends, and while attempting to tear slices of pizza away from the pie simultaneously, the other person’s piece partially tears, leaving you with an extra annexation of your slice. You laugh and apologise, but internally you cackle like Napoleon claiming Austerlitz, the bonus flap greedily flipped onto yours creating a sort of mega slice. To the flap flipper go the spoils.
A similar game of wills and cunning; who will eat the last oyster in an odd numbered group of diners. A sort of Wild West staredown that combines the tension of a hostage negotiation and the anxiety of the Russian Roulette scene in the Deer Hunter (don’t watch that). If you are the winner, most likely because you just asked if anyone else wants it (to which people are legally bound to say “nah you have it”), the Russian Roulette oyster is one of the sweetest stolen food moments one can experience.
There is however no stolen food moment as glorious, exhilarating and triumphant as found chocolate. This is a particular phenomenon in the months of February and March, where the dizzy hue of the festive season has washed away, and you lose track of your inventory of gifted chocolate and residual holiday snacks. Then, on an unassuming Wednesday in March, after an unremarkable meal at home, you have a remarkable moment. Rifling through the pantry in search of something, anything, a little flicker of purple foil sings its siren song to you. Eagerly you reach, the frantic fervour of Smeagle reaching for the ring of power, and you can’t believe it’s real. It’s that Boost Bar you nicked from the platter of chocolates your Nanna put out after Christmas lunch. You thought it had been a dream, but you did it; you broke the boundaries of time and memory, and hid this Boost Bar away knowing that one day, months from now, you would find it. Chris Nolan himself couldn’t dream a better story.
Illustration: PurpleDragonGirl
Bureau View in association with Broadsheet
Yesterday my second piece for Broadsheet in the Bureau View series was published. I’m really thrilled with the opportunity, and absolutely loved writing this piece. It asks a question I’ve asked many times myself: why doesn’t Australia have a Michelin guide? I got to speak to legends like Dani Valent and Pat Nourse, and two of Australia’s best chefs, Hugh Allen and Nicholas Hill. Give it a read!
The Westsider March Edition
For my fellow Westsiders, the latest edition of our fantastic free local paper is now available, and features two restaurant reviews from yours truly.
I got to (relunctantly) speak about one of my absolute favourite places in Melbourne, Yarravile’s Pizza D’Asporto, and the fantastic underrated gem that is Footscray’s Bruger.
Wishing you all a great weekend and, as the legend Ming Tsai says, peace and good eating.